


Double/Double - No Whip

by BeneficialAddiction



Series: Boxers, Briefs, and Other Shorts [33]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Clint Barton, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint and Nat and Tony are besties, Code Words, M/M, Milkshakes, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Has A Heart, give Tony Stark the friends he deserves, phil coulson is a fanboy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeneficialAddiction/pseuds/BeneficialAddiction
Summary: Clint hasn’t seen Natasha in person in three years, not since she joined up with SHIELD, but they still talk – leaving letters written in dead languages at all their old drop locations, sending coded texts made up of unreadable nonsense and inside jokes. She’s been nagging him to come in from the cold for a while so he’s not super surprised when, in the middle of a firefight, a text comes through revealing his position because he’d forgotten to turn the ringer off again.BRING ME A MILKSHAKEFunny thing – this one isn’t technically code.
Relationships: pre Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Series: Boxers, Briefs, and Other Shorts [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/698662
Comments: 67
Kudos: 545





	Double/Double - No Whip

Right about the time his Columbian Drug Lord buddies are closing in on him, Clint decides that he hates his text alert. 

It’s not the phone’s fault – really, it’s just the default _chime_ that most people have whenever a text message or a voicemail comes through – but the problem with Clint’s text alert is that it’s _loud._

He’s mostly deaf, see? And his current hearing aids are kind of crap. Consequently, the volume on his phone is set as high as it will go, and Clint’s kind of forgetful sometimes when he hasn’t had his coffee. South America has been running him ragged for the last few weeks, and even though he’s coming off a two-month break, he still feels like he’s sleep-walking most of the time. You’d think he’d be able to get good coffee in Columbia, but he’s been creeping around storage yards and blowing up warehouses for the better part of a month and he’s hardly had time to breathe let alone indulge his one and only addiction. 

Yanking the thing from his pocket, he sends it skittering across the pavement around a corner, where hopefully henchmen one, two, and three will follow it, giving him enough time to haul himself up onto a shipping container and out of sight. 

No such luck – he gets clipped in the upper arm with the first bullet and only just gets out of the way of the rest of them. What follows is a short but bloody shoot-out resulting in several lost arrows and three dead flunkies, and no small amount of pissed-off cursing on his part. Hissing under his breath, he jumps down off the container once the shooting’s stopped and cuts a strip of fabric off the bottom of one guy’s shirt, uses it to bandage the graze riding high on his bicep. 

What – it’s not like the dude needs it anymore. 

Surveying the damage, glancing around cautiously for any more bad guys, Clint darts across the open aisle between rows of containers and snags his phone back up, shoving it into his pocket and beating feet for the exit of the shipping yard. He’s searched it well – no human trafficking victims in any of these _particular_ containers, which means he can punch the detonator in his hand with a vicious sense of satisfaction once he’s clear. 

The place blows with an explosion that rocks the earth beneath his feet, a wave of heat and sound hitting him like a truck. He manages to keep his balance, his eyes closed against the blast, but he needs to _feel_ it to know that it’s real, to know that this one gang, this one massive operation, this one shipment of bad cocaine is gone and done. 

It’s kind of the thing he’s living for right now, and he’s _tired._

He _needs_ it. 

As he turns his back on the smoking crater that is now the shipping yard, Clint heads toward the alley where he’s got a motorbike stashed and checks the message that had so rudely disclosed his location. Thumbing onto the home screen, he grins when he sees the name Natalie Rushman blinking at him. She’s probably moved on to a new alias by now, but it’s a little more subtle than Natasha Romanov and a little less obvious than Black Widow. 

His boots catch on the gravel and he stumbles a little when he reads the actual text attached. 

**N:** _Bring me a milkshake._

Clint stares, his heart thumping in his chest, suddenly... 

Suddenly _scared._

Or... _hopeful,_ hell, he doesn’t know. 

He hasn’t slept in almost thirty-six hours. 

It’s just, Nat works for SHIELD now. Has done for a few years. Things had gone bad with the Red Room, and she’d gotten herself into a place kinda like the one Clint is in now, where she was mostly alone and really tired and starting to run out of personal vendettas to keep her busy. She says it’s a better place to be – with SHIELD – and she seems happy enough, but she’s been trying to get Clint to come in from the cold for a while. 

He’s always turned her down before, always had arguments when they’d talked about it, but this, this isn’t talking. 

This is Nat _telling_ him, and god knows how she knew or why she thought that it was the right time, but he thinks... 

Hell, he thinks maybe it is. 

Whatever crazy mindreading powers she’s got, the text is code, telling him it’s time to come in. 

Huffing out a breath, he laughs, just a little hysterically, at the sense of relief that floods through his system. 

It’s also _not_ a code though. 

Not _just_ a code anyway. 

She’ll be pissed if he shows up empty-handed.

**AVAVA**

It’s a lot easier to break into SHIELD than it should be.

After about a week’s surveillance he knows where all the cameras are around HQ, and consequently where all the blind spots are. He sticks close, slumming around eating from food trucks and petting dogs at the park, watching well-dressed agents come and go on a pathetically predictable schedule and flirting with Stark by text. Tony still wants Hawkeye to come and work for _him,_ but he knows how Clint is about Nat so he gets over the disappointment pretty quick and forks over the little piece of tech Clint had commissioned with minimal fussing. He’d have done it for free (says he can sell it to the delivery business for thousands), but in the end he settles for what payment Clint can happily afford – one blurry snap of them kissing in a shadowy corner to keep the papparazzi off the trail of his relationship with Pepper Potts and the promise of a pizza-and-ice-cream slumber party with Nat as soon as they’re both free. 

He doesn’t really remember when the three of them became friends, but he figures after what happened in Afghanistan Tony needs as many as he can get. Besides, he treats Nat pretty good, even when SHIELD sends her in to try to steal his ideas and bring him on as a contractor. They’ve tried for several years, and probably have a better chance now that Tony’s out from under Stane’s thumb, but it hasn’t changed their relationship. Every few months at least a couple of them try to get together, by Skype or in person when they’re in the same country. He knows for a fact that Stark sent Natasha a bouquet of sunflowers on her birthday last month, so when he stops at Salvatore’s to pick up Nat’s milkshake he has one sent to Stark Tower too. It’ll show up melted and leaking all over the sides of the cup unlike Nat’s, which gets packed into the weird little anti-gravity cooler Clint had asked him to build. He tucks the Styrofoam cup inside and slips the bag onto his back – it's a little too big for commercial use, but Clint will send the data he collects from this little experiment to Tony and the thing will probably be on the market for every pizza boy and bike messenger within the month. 

Sad to say, but getting a taxi from the little deli to SHIELD HQ is actually the hardest part of the whole thing. 

Well, to the next block over anyway. 

Clint freeclimbs up the side of a few buildings and treks across a few roofs – no one ever looks up in New York. Pulling up the hood on his dark jacket, he drops low and starts to slink when he comes into range of the closest cameras. The cheap screwdriver in his pocket takes the cover off a wide-mouthed ventilation shaft and then he’s inside, worming his way along on his belly with more than enough room for him, his bow and quiver, and the bag holding Stark’s cooler. 

He makes his way pretty deep into the building over the next half hour, but eventually he gets bored. There’s more to what Nat’s asked of him, demanded of him here today than just dropping off a milkshake, and silently sneaking in and out doesn’t really hold up to that, doesn’t really prove anything. Coming upon an elevator shaft, he drops heavily onto the lid of a passing car and taps out the tune to Itsy Bitsy Spider, waiting until he hears the panic inside and feels the thing judder to an emergency stop before hopping off and disappearing back into the vents. He pulls the same trick three more times before some kind of siren sounds, the whole place bursting into a controlled panic. He watches through a heating grate and shoots a couple of fresh-faced baby agents with paper wasps before moving on again. 

If anything the immature antics will alert Nat to just who’s in the building. 

He finds her on the control deck, standing off to the side with her arms crossed while a black man in an eyepatch and too much leather spins in circles, shouting at holo-screens while a slim woman with short hair and a blank expression stands at attention by his side. Clint watches contentedly, basking in the minor chaos he’s caused, but perks up when a middle-aged man in a suit steps into the room and quickly takes control. 

Anyone would look at him and call him a paper-pusher, what with the quiet body language and receding hairline, but Clint’s always seen better than most people. He sees competency and control, sees muscle and broad shoulders beneath a four-figure suit, and sees the way that everyone – even Nat – listens when he speaks. 

“I don’t give a damn Coulson!” Eyepatch snarls. “My headquarters have been infiltrated and I want to know what the hell is going on!” 

“All we know at the moment is that a few junior agents have been spooked,” the man – Coulson – says coolly. “You know how sensitive they are. You need to consider other options than a hostile take-over. You’re getting paranoid in your old age boss.” 

“It’s not paranoia if it’s actually happening Cheese,” he snipes. 

“I’ve got our analysts combing through our systems as we speak,” he reassures. “No sign of a virus or any unauthorized access. They do think they might’ve gotten a blip of some Stark tech in the building, but we’ve known he was in our system for months.” 

“Years,” Natasha pipes up coolly. 

Coulson casts her a nod of acknowledgement and Nat nods back, and Clint, well, Clint’s chest goes tight. 

He’d been willing to ignore the little jolt of attraction he’d felt when the man had stepped into the room and taken control – Clint's attracted to a lot of people – but _hell,_ Nat respects him, and he respects her. 

That means a lot in his book – see Tony Stark. 

Well, it’s as good an entrance as he’s going to get he supposes. 

While the three bosses in charge – cause that’s definitely what they are – bend their heads to the screens, Clint quietly unscrews the vent cover and sets it to the side, sliding himself through and hanging by his fingertips. A couple of the lesser agents milling around catch sight of him and just... stare, stunned, but Nat’s got a smirk on her face. Bringing his knees up, he executes a fancy triple flip from his circus days and lands neatly at her feet. 

There are a dozen guns on him before he’s even standing again. 

“Mm, eight point five from the Russian judge,” she muses, and Clint scowls. “Spitballs Clint, really?” 

“Please, like I’d leave my DNA around all willy-nilly like that,” he grouches. 

“A flat nine then.” 

“Who the fuck is this?” Eyepatch bellows. 

“You didn’t tell them I was coming?” Clint asks innocently, forcing his eyes wide and twisting his mouth into a pout. 

“I would have if you’d used the front door like a normal person.” 

“And miss the chance to assess their security?” he smirks, slinging his pack off and kneeling to open the clasps. “Not great, by the way.” 

He aims this last bit a Mr. Sexy-in-a-Suit, _Coulson,_ who’s staring at him with something like awe on his face. 

“You’re Hawkeye,” he breathes, with an air of _of-course-you-are_ that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. 

“What, did the bow and arrow give it away?” he asks. 

“I’ve been trying to recruit you for _six years,”_ the agent counters, sounding strangled. 

Clint pauses, turns and looks at him, because that... 

That was _way_ before Natasha got recruited. 

“What are you _doing_ here?” 

“Hey, the Widow says jump, I say yes ma’am,” he replies with a shrug, because _duh,_ but also because he’s a little shocked and doesn’t really know what to say. 

Not a lot of people have ever... looked at him the way this guy is. 

Bouncing back to his feet, he hands her the styrofoam cup, still intact and cool to the touch, along with a plastic straw. 

“Not how high?” 

Frowning, even as Natasha tries to hide her smirk by taking a long, noisy slurp of her milkshake, he turns back to Coulson, who’s gun is now pointed at the floor, _unlike_ everyone else’... 

“It’s not her job to tell me how high,” he says, and it comes out a lot more insistent than he means to. Nat’s hand lights on his arm and squeezes, but he brushes her off because this is important, and SHIELD should know that now if he’s going to stick around. 

“If I’ve got her back,” he continues, holding hard eye contact with the prettiest baby blues he’s ever seen, “If I’ve really got her back then I should already know how high. Just like I know when she says to bring her a milkshake, what she really means is a Double/Double, no whip from Salvatore’s in Queens.” 

Eyepatch looks like he’s about to pop a blood vessel, a vein in his forehead throbbing dangerously, and the woman at his side just looks unimpressed by the whole thing, but Coulson, Coulson looks like he wants to eat Clint alive, and very, very suddenly his whole body goes hot and sensitive, like he can feel the tension of every one of the agents still pointing their guns at him. Swallowing hard, he looks away from them and refocuses, pulling Natasha into a hug and burying his face in her hair. 

“I’ve missed you,” he murmurs, and he feels her hug him back before patting him on the shoulder, signaling him that it’s time to let go. 

“And I have missed you Little Bird,” she says in Russian. 

Clint abruptly has to swallow back tears, clearing his throat loudly. 

“Yeah, anyway,” he says gruffly, kneeling down to rezip the bag at his feet and sling it over his shoulder. “Stark wants to do another slumber party soon, so...” 

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” 

Eyepatch’s outburst is more frustrated than white-hot-pissed, and as if by order every agent in the room holsters their weapons. Clint smirks and Nat smirks back, and he puts on his showman’s smile before turning to face him. 

“Nick Fury I presume,” he says roguishly, and because he’s feeling brave he shoots Coulson a saucy wink. 

“Oh my god, I want him.” 

Clint blinks, shocked, and Coulson looks just as surprised by what’s come out of his mouth, his ears red. Fury scowls, mutters something unflattering under his breath, then throws up his hands. 

“Would someone turn those fucking sirens off?” he snarls. “God damn.” 

Stomping right up to Clint, he looks him up and down and seems just a little impressed that Clint doesn’t flinch or back away. 

“I suppose this was your doing?” he asks over Clint’s shoulder. 

“You _were_ getting a bit desperate,” Nat replies demurely. 

“Fine,” he snarls. Turning away with a swirl of his ridiculous leather coat, he pauses to stab a finger into Coulson’s chest. 

“He’s all yours,” he growls. “But I want our damn security updated first thing.” 

“Yeah boss.” 

He’s still staring. 

All the other agents take their cue and start to disperse, but he just stands there, looking at Clint with a gaze that’s heavy and heated and intense, and Clint’s mouth goes dry. Snorting indelicately, Nat brushes past him and steps up to the agent’s side, waiting for Clint to join her before making introductions. 

“Phil, this is Clint Barton. Also known as Hawkeye, the World’s Greatest Marksman. Clint, this is Phillip Coulson, Agent of SHIELD.” 

“Nice to finally meet you Mr. Barton,” the suit replies, offering his hand. 

His grip is firm, confident, and Clint holds the shake just a little too long. 

“Likewise Agent,” he grins. “I’m guessing there’s a lot of paperwork to go over, but maybe we could do it over lunch? I didn’t bring enough milkshake for the rest of the class.” 

Phillip Coulson, Agent of SHIELD eyes him for a minute, then dips his chin. 

“Pancakes,” he agrees. “Agent Romanov, would you care to join us?” 

“Mm, not today,” she muses, turning away and shooting Clint a look as she walks away. “I’m just going to finish this.” 

Toasting them with her cup, she wanders out of the room, leaving Clint feeling just a tiny bit like he’s been played. 

Small victories – Coulson's wearing a very similar expression. 

Shaking his head, he jerks his chin in the direction of the door and raises his eyebrow in challenge. 

“Shall we?” 

Coulson smiles. 

"Why not?"

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm picturing one of those anti-spill kiddie bowls? Like, you'd weight the bottom of the cup and put it into a free-spinning sphere, which goes inside the cooler, so you could bounce it and flip it around but the cup inside would always stay right-side up? IDK, Tony Stark could totally do it.


End file.
